On January 21, 1974, in the case of Lau v. Nichols, the United States Supreme Court unanimously decided that the lack of supplemental language instruction in public schools for students with limited English proficiency violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Today, English learners (ELs) represent 10 percent of the total K-12 population in the United States, a 4.8 million number that continues to increase in both size and diversity. To meet the growing demographics of ELs, many of the challenges confronting school districts today aim at ensuring equity and excellence for this special population.

Implementing a Collaborative Quality School Review Process to enable continuous and sustainable school improvement

Generally speaking, school staff feel most comfortable to discuss and action necessary change when they are empowered to own the process. Of course, there is a need to heighten accountability, but most success will be seen through a process that involves staff members as the creators and implementers of the work. To increase staff involvement and action school leaders are turning to Collaborative Quality Review processes.

Here are five reasons why…..

Often schools find themselves stuck in a rut when it comes to school improvement. They recognize that their staff may need to change their teaching styles, strategies, content and coverage to ensure that learning improves, yet the pace of change is too slow. Inevitably, when lessons lack rigor or challenge, and when students are bored, behavior alters; withdrawal, seeking alternative ways to entertain themselves, chatting, not listening are all tell-tale signs. Often this can be down to long-serving teachers who are reticent or lack confidence or don’t know what to do to change how they do things.

As the pressure for tighter authorizer accountability increases, the call for charter schools to prove their worth grows year on year.  Whether the objective is to celebrate growth and success, or to identify areas where focus on improvement is needed, an external review allows an organization to demonstrate objectively a focus on securing sustainability in a very competitive, and sometimes challenging education arena.